Jochen Lempert at Contemporary Art Centre

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When the new Planet Earth (II) came out there was a critique that the tiny slivers of the planet in exquisite 4k and presented on 70 ft screens made those tiny glimpses appear larger than they were. Most of "planet earth" didn't look like that, that most of the world burns. They were right, the "documentary" had increasingly become escapist television. The "reality TV" that is a fantasy of a world that isn't on the edge, that still safely harbors flora, breath, life, isn't choking. Securing some fantastical turf for the "natural" we ostracize to parks and behind 4k glass.
So maybe Lempert's moribund nostalgia is actually a sci-fi, of our present from the future, as it wrinkles and curls and blows out. Tragedy.


See too: Jochen Lempert at Between Bridges

Simon Dybbroe Møller at CAC Vilnius

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Like a less stupid Bader, a less virally aggressive Wolfson. There is a surrealism undercurrent in the world turned into an image. You can kind of tease it, the world. Make it do things. Sort of tickle it into laughter. A running gag.

Steinar Haga Kristensen at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius



Doubling is a good one, used to to full effect here. It suspends the rectifying, organizing principles of vision into a game. Desperately wanting to look at the thing itself, the images, repeating, disobey the logic of visual order: that there be a thing, singular. "The fact that there were two of them signifies the end of any original reference. [...] Only the doubling of the sign truly puts an end to what it designates." The content ironizes, deauthenticates, and prioritizes visual experience of the competing sights. If there had been only one owl, we’d be talking about the owl, but the two make it seem beside the point, of which there isn’t one, there’s two. Good Show.